Teten: I Was Assigned By Jokowi To Prepare Indonesia To Become An Advanced Country

Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs, Teten Masduki (Photo via Antara)

JAKARTA - The Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs, Teten Masduki, stated that currently the trend of public awareness to buy domestic products is increasing.

Therefore, he invited the Indonesia Creative Cities Network (ICCN) which is spread across 225 cities/districts to become partners with the government to assist and access the powering ecosystem of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country.

"I was assigned by President Jokowi to prepare Indonesia to become a developed country. So in addition to infrastructure development and human resources (human resources) promoted by the government, we have also prepared one million new established entrepreneurs, therefore I want to cooperate with ICCN friends," explained Minister Teten at the National Coordination Meeting (Rakornas) entitled Local Jejaring Keren at Inews Tower, Jakarta, Wednesday, September 28.

According to him, ICCN is a strategic forum for creative people to develop their potential and MSMEs in Indonesia. Teten admits that he always gets new ideas in every event held by ICCN.

"All of you are elements of advancing from their respective regions. You are all creative elements of this nation that we have," he said as quoted by Antara.

The Coordinating Minister hopes that young people involved in the ICCN forum can influence civilization in Indonesia and the world.

Based on the report of Deloitte UK, he continued, the creative industry is a key factor for the economic growth of a nation in the long term. This is much more surviving than an economy based on natural exploration.

Together with the ICCN network, Teten wants the entrepreneurship ratio in Indonesia to approach level 4 percent as the main condition for becoming a developed country in 2045.

"So now we are starting to clean up the ecosystem, access to financing (for MSMEs and new entrepreneurs) is facilitated, then we also work on market access and access to business development. So the important thing is let's work together to be ready to lead the world," he said.